The coach ascended slowly, more and more slowly with gentle cadenced movements; the coachman dozed, the horse seemed walking in his sleep. The sun at his zenith rained an equable and melancholy splendour; the thickets threw no shadow. Profound silence, burning somnolence pervaded the immense landscape. Anania felt himself really dissolving, becoming one with the drowsy panorama, with the sad and luminous sky. The fact was he was himself drowsy. _As that other time_, so now, he ended by closing his eyes and falling childishly asleep. "Aunt Grathia! _Nonna_!" (godmother), he called, his voice still sleepy, as he entered the widow's cottage. The kitchen was deserted, the sunny little street was deserted; deserted the whole village which in the desolation of midday, seemed prehistoric, abandoned for centuries. Anania looked curiously around. Nothing was changed. Poverty, rags, soot, ashes in the hearth, cobwebs among the rafters of the roof; wild emperor of that legendary spot, the long and empty phantasm of the black cloak hanging against the earthen wall. "Aunt Grathia, where are you? Aunt Grathia?" cried the young man. The widow had gone to the well. Presently she returned with a malune[21] on her head and a bucket in her hand. She was just the same; yellow, thorny, with a spectral face surrounded by the folds of a dirty kerchief. The years had passed without ageing that body already dried up and exhausted of the emotions of her distant youth. Anania seeing her was strangely moved. A flood of memories rose out of the depths of his soul. He seemed to recall a whole former existence, to see afresh the spirit which had inhabited his body before his spirit of to-day. "_Bonos dias,_"(good day) the widow said in greeting, surveying in astonishment the handsome unknown youth. She set down first the pail, then the _malune_ slowly and without taking her eyes off the stranger. But no sooner had he smiled and asked, "What? don't you know me?" than she emitted a cry and opened her arms. Anania kissed her and overwhelmed her with questions. How, where was Zuanne? Why had he become a monk? Did he visit his mother? Was he happy? And her elder son? And the candlemaker's son? And this one, and that one? And how had life gone on these fifteen years at Fonni? And to-morrow could he make the ascension of the Gennargentu?